2019 Virginia Beach shooting

On May 31, 2019, a mass shooting occurred at a municipal building in the Princess Anne area of Virginia Beach, Virginia, United States. The gunman, 40-year-old DeWayne Craddock, a disgruntled city employee, fatally shot 12 people and wounded four others before he was killed by responding police officers during an exchange of gunfire.

Shooting

The perpetrator fatally shot a person in a car in the parking lot of Building 2 of the Virginia Beach Municipal Center and one person on the steps before entering the building and shooting people on all three floors. The building housed the city's public works, utilities, and planning departments in an open-government facility with no additional security to enter but security passes required for accessing employee areas and conference rooms. He fired indiscriminately and there was no immediate indication that he had targeted anyone in particular. He was fatally shot during a prolonged gunfight with police who responded to the scene. An autopsy report confirmed that his cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds, and that he had no drugs in his system at the time of the attack.

Some members of the public and employees were initially unaware of the shooter, and many were alerted by phone calls, text messages, or word of mouth to shelter in place or evacuate the location. The confusion was in part due to renovations that were underway at the time leading many to believe the shots were from a nail gun or another tool. An active shooter situation at the municipal center was confirmed by an email from the Communications Office at 4:22 p.m.